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“They cluster about that silent, central figure. One by one they touch it; curiously, reverently.”—page 12.

“Because,” he proceeds, after a moment’s silence, “I never saw the effects of a lightning stroke, and don’t feel qualified to judge.”

“It’s lightnin’,” says the man called Bob, in a positive voice; “I’ve never seen a case, but I’ve read of ’em. It’s lightnin’, sure.”

“Of course it is,” breaks in another. “What else can it be? There ain’t an Injun about and besides—”

A sharp flash of lightning, instantly followed by a loud peal of thunder, interrupts this speech, and, when they can hear his voice, Parks says, quietly:

“I suppose you are right, Menard. Now, let’s take him down to the wagons; quick, the rain is coming again.”

Slowly they move down the hill with their burden, Walter Parks supporting the head and shoulders of the dead. And as they go, one of them says:

“Shall I run ahead and tell the Krutzers?”

“No,” replies Parks, sternly; “we will take him to my wagon. I will inform Mrs. Krutzer.”

So they lay him in the wagon belonging to their leader, and before they leave him there Parks does a strange thing. He takes off the oil-skin cap from his own head and pulls it tight upon the head of the dead man. Then he strides over to the wagon occupied by the Krutzers.

II.

A flickering, sputtering candle, lights up the interior of a large canvas-covered wagon. On a narrow pallet across one side of the vehicle, a man tosses and groans, now and then turning his haggard face, and staring, blood-shot eyes, upon a woman who crouches near him, holding upon her knees a child of two summers, who slumbers peacefully through the storm, with its fair baby face upturned to the flickering candle. In the corner, opposite the woman, lies a boy of perhaps ten years, ragged, unkempt, and fast asleep.

A blaze of lightning and a rush of wind cause the man to cry out nervously, and then to exclaim, peevishly:

“Oh, I wish the morning would come; this is horrible!”

“Hush, Krutzer,” says the woman, in a low, hissing whisper; “you act like a fool.”

She bends forward and lays the sleeping child beside the dirty boy in the corner. Then she lifts her head and listens.

“Hush!” she whispers again; “they are astir outside; I hear them talking. Ah! some one is coming.”

“Mrs. Krutzer.”

It is the voice of Walter Parks, and this time the woman parts the tent flap and looks out.

“Is that you, Mr. Parks? I thought I heard voices out there. Is the storm doing any damage?”

“Not at present. Is Krutzer awake?”

She glances toward the form upon the pallet; it is shivering as with an ague. Then she says, unhesitatingly:

“Krutzer has been in such misery since this storm came up, that I’ve just given him morphine. He ain’t exactly asleep, but he’s stupid and flighty; get into the wagon, Mr. Parks, and see how he is for yourself. Poor man; this is the fifth day of his rheumatism, and he has not stood on his feet once in that time.”

The visitor hesitates for a moment, then drawing nearer and lowering his tone somewhat, he says:

“If Krutzer is in a bad state now, he had better not know what I have come to tell. Can he hear me as I speak?”

“No; not if you don’t raise your voice.”

“Pearson is dead, Mrs. Krutzer.”

She starts, gasps, and then,